


Three Years and Counting

by rillalicious



Category: Boy Meets World
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-06
Updated: 2011-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-16 03:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillalicious/pseuds/rillalicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Topanga knew a long time before Cory and Shawn figured it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Years and Counting

Topanga knew.

She knew a long time before Cory and Shawn figured it out. She knew from that day at the airport, when Jack and Rachel boarded the plane and Eric curled in a ball in the backseat on the way home. Topanga was sitting in the backseat too (she'd long ago given up fighting Shawn for shotgun, even if she was the _wife_ ). She watched him, knees tucked up beneath his chin as if he were twelve, eyes flickering back and forth as they followed the houses and streetlamps that slid past the window in quick succession. He looked empty in a way that she understood. And she knew that the hole in his heart wasn't a Rachel-shaped space.

By the third Christmas in New York, they finally had a routine and traditions. An unconventional tradition, Topanga told them, was still a tradition. And a slow fuck on the braided rug, with only the tiny white lights of the Christmas tree illuminating the room, Shawn's hands on Cory's shoulders, and Cory pressed up against her, on top of her, pushing her knees apart and riding her with that lazy half-smile that said he was right here in their arms and a million miles away at the same time, had become a tradition. They finished a few minutes before Eric rang the bell.

While Cory buzzed him in, Topanga put spiced cider on the stove top, hoping the scent would carry through the little apartment, smother the aroma of pine needles and sex.

If Eric noticed, he didn't say anything.

Cory drank too much champagne (for which Topanga usually only budgeted on New Year's Eve, but this year they were celebrating and she had bought two bottles herself) early in the evening, and Shawn had corralled him by the fire escape, pressing a finger to Cory's lips as Cory began to belt out The Little Drummer Boy. Cory nipped at the silencing finger, undeterred.

"Shawnie! You can be Bing this time! You _love_ to be Bing!"

Topanga dropped onto the couch beside Eric, tucking a foot beneath her. She knew it was always worst for Eric at Christmas, when the three of them were wrapped tighter around one another under the influence of holiday glow.

"It works out just like this?" Eric asked. He looked away from Cory and Shawn.

"Just like what?" said Topanga, pretending for the sake of his pride that she hadn't figured him out years ago.

"You and Cory and Shawn. You all just live here, and _you're_ married to Cory, but he's with Shawn too, and it all works out?"

"For us, it does," she said, and she wished the answer had been different.

"For you. Right." Eric stuck a candycane in his eggnog, swirled it around, held it up and watched a half dozen milky drops fall like rain back into his cup. "You guys are special."

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

"Do I ever? Oh!" He dropped the candycane back into the drink and set it aside. "Christmas Feeny call!" And then he was on his feet and _running_ to the bedroom.

Before she could follow, the bell rang again.

Shawn, whose forehead had been pressed against Cory's as he sang earnestly along, jerked upright. Cory pitched forward. Topanga, laughing, pushed up from the couch to help him.

"Geez, Shawn," Cory muttered, grabbing at her blindly. "Give a guy a little warning in the middle of his rum-pum-pum-pums!"

"My brother's here," Shawn said, and he pressed a finger to the buzzer.

"Jack?" Cory's head flopped to the side and Topanga laughed. He looked like a marionette.

"Yes, _Jack_ ," she said. "Who else?"

"No one told me Jack and Rachel were coming," said Cory. "Why am I always out of the loop? As master of this household, I demand to be looped!"

"All right, master of your own delusions," Topanga said, tossing him down on the couch. "We only found out at the last minute. And it's just Jack. Rachel's staying in Africa."

"FEEEE-HEEEHEEHEE-HEEHEEHEE-NAY!" Eric's cry from the other room was answered by the downstairs neighbor with a sharp broom handle to the ceiling.

"Eric!" Topanga hissed. "It's _late_. Children are in bed."

"ME-HE-ERRY CHRISTMAS, FEEEENAY!"

" _Eric_!" She rushed to the bedroom door.

Sometime during her silent, yet animated, tirade in the bedroom, Jack slipped into the apartment. He was already comfortably on the couch, drink in hand, when Topanga escorted Eric away from the phone (after prolific apologies to Mr. Feeny--and she swore she'd _never_ be able to call him "George"--for the unexpected holiday cheer at midnight). Eric stopped, scanned the room, presumably for Rachel, and shook his head, as if he'd shake off the hallucination all together. As if he, and not Cory, had nearly finished that bottle of champagne. Their eyes caught from across the room in a moment that Topanga thought was too much like a movie to be real.

That was when Jack's face _lit_ up.

"Get over here," he said. "And stop acting like you forgot what I look like after eighteen months."

Eric took a running start, hurled himself over the couch, landed with a crash at Jack's feet.

"That move was a lot more Bond-like in my head," he said, letting Jack pull him up. Jack held onto Eric's arm long after he was sitting upright.

And again, before anyone else, Topanga knew. She knew why Rachel wasn't coming home, and that Jack's ticket had probably been one way.

She knew that it had taken three years, but Jack had come home for Eric.

 

[END]


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